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Review: The View from Here
by Jeff Foust
Monday, August 22, 2011
The View from Here: Optimize Your Engineering Career from the Start
by Reece Lumsden
Illumina Publishing, 2011
hardcover, 192 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4507-5055-4
US$22.95
In recent years, one major concern of the space industry in the United States has revolved around the workforce. The retirement of the Space Shuttle and the uncertainty about what would succeed it has resulted in the loss of thousand of jobs and worries that more will be lost in the months and years to come. Even before that, though, industry leaders were worried that a wave of retirements would create a vacuum of knowledge and interest that they would struggle to fill—even as new college graduates in space-related science and engineering fields find their job searches challenging. What’s a new engineer to do?
| Space may not be a high-growth field, but recent developments do offer opportunities for a new generation of engineers, if they’re properly prepared to take advantage of them. |
Reece Lumsden offers some practical advice for up-and-coming engineers in The View from Here. The book is designed to guide a prospective engineer through their education and early career phases, including guidance on pursuing advanced degrees, finding a job, and, once on the job, embracing the non-technical skills needed for success, including effective communications, ethics, and attitude, the last of which he describes as the secret of the successful engineer. Lumsden bases his book on his own experience studying engineering in college in Australia and later coming to work in the US (his bio coyly notes that he works for a “large aerospace company in Everett, Washington”.)
While Lumsden does have a space background, including a master’s degree from the International Space University, this book is not space-specific but instead covers engineering disciplines in general. Other than a few anecdotes about his own career, including asking a panel of space industry CEOs at a conference why he was having a problem finding a job despite his strong background, Lumsden focuses on advice that’s relevant to any engineering-related career. In one chapter of the book, he identifies high-growth engineering fields, including biotech, alternative energy, and Internet services; aerospace was notably, if unsurprisingly, absent from that list. Space may not be a high-growth field, but recent developments, from development of commercial crew and cargo systems to work on systems and technologies to enable human exploration beyond Earth orbit, do offer opportunities for a new generation of engineers, if they’re properly prepared to take advantage of them. The View from Here offers the guidance and advice to help them do just that.
Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site and the Space Politics and NewSpace Journal weblogs. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone, and do not represent the official positions of any organization or company, including the Futron Corporation, the author’s employer.
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